


Your Heart Only Works in Pen

by the_rck



Series: House of Sulfur and Mercury [15]
Category: Chronicles of Amber - Roger Zelazny
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Babies, Dysfunctional Family, Luke/Merlin is slow burn and consensual, M/M, Rescue, hard choices, references to rape
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-12
Updated: 2019-07-12
Packaged: 2020-06-27 01:11:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19780174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_rck/pseuds/the_rck
Summary: I thought Merlin was still in the blue cave, so I was really damned astonished to find him in the Keep of the Four Worlds. He was sharing a meal with my mother at the rectangular table in her private dining room. I really didn't want him to be there, so I stared at the two of them for a second or two longer than I ought to have. "I'm sorry," I said, focusing my attention entirely on Mother. "I thought you'd be alone."aka The One in which Luke is Several Decades Older When He Returns to Find Merlin as His Mother's Prisoner. This results in a happier ending for almost everybody.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Gammarad, GoldenFalls, and Lumykitty for beta help.
> 
> Title from Lucien LaMotte's song, “BookEnd.” The song can be found on YouTube.
> 
> This story branches from near the end of "They Come Knocking Like Hearts Asking" and is my attempt to write Merlin and Luke not destroying each other.
> 
> The references to rape are non-explicit and refer to past Jasra/Merlin.

I thought Merlin was still in the blue cave, so I was really damned astonished to find him in the Keep of the Four Worlds. He was sharing a meal with my mother at the rectangular table in her private dining room. I really didn't want him to be there, so I stared at the two of them for a second or two longer than I ought to have. "I'm sorry," I said, focusing my attention entirely on Mother. "I thought you'd be alone."

Private for her usually meant only me and her and Dalt. Sometimes, very occasionally, whoever was currently sharing her bed might be allowed a place at the table. I'd never figured out why she bothered having more than four chairs. Possibly, they came as a set of six that she didn't want to break up, but I doubt it. They had hand-embroidered seat backs and fancy carved vines climbing the legs. Mother hadn't gotten them at a yard sale; they had to have been custom made for her. She'd just wanted six chairs.

Merlin pretty clearly hadn't expected to see me, either, because he went from a flirting smile to utter blankness in a fraction of a second. He closed his eyes. When he opened them, he gave my mother a stiltedly startled look. "You didn't tell me Rinaldo was coming," he said. There was a mildness in the words that Merlin never aimed at anyone he liked.

He'd used it on Julia a lot during the last two months they were together, every time she tried to drag him into a screaming fight.

Mother didn't look altogether pleased to see me, but she met my eyes and smiled. "Welcome home." She didn't look at Merlin at all. She started to push back her chair in order to stand but seemed to be having trouble with it.

That worried me because Mother had never before had that sort of problem. She'd have redecorated entirely rather than allow her furniture to showcase her weaknesses. The chair was heavy-looking and had a wood framed back that rose in a peak above her head. It weighed less and moved more easily than a chair that size ought to because Mother liked looking stronger than she was. 

She'd had time to replace the chairs. I'd meant for less time to pass for her than for me, but I'd also intended that Merlin have even less time than Mother did. Apparently, I'd misjudged something, possibly more than one thing, and I didn't like it. This wasn't misjudgment like wearing the wrong clothes to a party. It was more like realizing I'd brought a balsa wood stick to a sword fight.

Merlin was on his feet in an instant, pulling out Mother's chair. He glanced at me, and for a moment, I could see deeper anger there than I'd ever known him to show. "Careful," he said, offering Mother a hand up. He kept his eyes on my face as Mother stood.

She was very, very pregnant. I didn't have the experience to guess how far along she was, but I couldn't imagine her getting much bigger around.

They'd been sitting beside each other in a way that spoke of physical intimacy, two chairs along one of the sides of the table rather than one at the head and one at the foot. That was how Mother sat with her lovers when she was pleased with them.

I let my surprise at the change in my mother's appearance show as I rounded the corner of the table to embrace her. "Why didn't you tell me?" I knew why. I knew her tactics and strategies well enough; she'd thought that I'd object, and she'd been right. "If I'd known, I'd have come home sooner." I kissed her cheek. It wasn't even a lie.

Merlin backed away from us and leaned against the wall. That placed him almost three yards behind Mother. The red in his clothing matched the drapery so well that I had to assume Mother had selected both. It was unsubtle enough that even Merlin must have understood that it marked him as part of the decor, a completely replaceable thing.

Somehow, I doubted that Mother actually thought Merlin replaceable. Disposable, probably, but not replaceable.

He was probably still alive because Mother liked making her enemies acknowledge her power. I was glad he'd had sense enough to stop fighting her. I didn't want to think about how hard that lesson might have been for him. He knew what had happened to him; she hadn't bothered-- or couldn't manage-- putting mental controls on him. He was my friend, and she had--

Mother laughed as if I'd said something funny. "I'm terrible company right now. No need for you to suffer, too." She shook her head. "You don't care about babies."

Neither did she. If she had wanted children for the sake of children, she'd have done it sooner. If she'd absolutely needed Oberon's bloodline, I expect Dalt would have obliged. That would have been weird and incesty because she'd helped raise Dalt, but it wouldn't have been--

I glanced at Merlin.

He was studying the mosaic on the domed ceiling and very deliberately not looking at us.

It wouldn't have been... this.

I wondered whether Mother'd assumed I wouldn't care about the Merlin part of what she'd done or if she'd expected to have time to tidy away all the evidence before I came home. The latter... How long would it have taken me to guess? Would I have guessed at all? I'd have wanted so very much to be wrong, and nothing I could have done, at that point, would have helped Merlin, so I might have avoided guessing.

Mother would have encouraged that. She might even have given it a hard push with some sort of mind magic. She could. Dalt had warned me that she could. He'd been really fucking oblique about it, though, and I hadn't understood what he meant until years later when Mother sent me off to college to murder Merlin.

Even then, I'm not sure if my inability to argue with her was due to her having used magic or simply due to her having raised me. I'd lost one parent already and kind of desperately needed not to lose her. That might have bound me tighter than any compulsion would because it would have been entirely mine.

Maybe she never used magic on me. Maybe she loved me more than that. I don't know, but because Dalt had mentioned that walking the Pattern would shatter such magics, I went to Tir and walked the Pattern when I was a freshman and then did it again, just in case, before I sealed Merlin in the cave and started my decades long sabbatical. I'm pretty sure it says something very nasty about my relationship with my mother that I'd risked plummeting to my death twice to stop something I wasn't even sure she'd done.

During college, I spent several years in a different Shadow between sophomore and junior years because I couldn't reconcile Merlin my friend with Merlin my enemy. I'd needed to get my head on straight. I took more time between junior and senior year and during a lot of small gaps that last year of school-- I spent a lot of time 'traveling for interviews' so that Merlin wouldn't notice-- because time without the urgency of Mother's agenda had been a vast relief. I'd had time to think more about Dad and about the universe and about what I might want that wasn't revenge.

Time had told me that killing people wasn't going to bring Dad back. I still felt like it was my fault he'd died, my fault because I'd been too young to stop him or to help him. If I'd been a better son, he might have made better plans.

He wouldn't have. I knew that. I was just probably never going to stop feeling that something I did or didn't do made it all happen. Dad was perfect and amazing. _He_ couldn't have fucked up. He wouldn't have abandoned us, not unless I did something to deserve it. Maybe he'd have come back if I hadn't been so angry at him for not letting me help.

I killed Caine for the sake of the thirteen year old I had been. I didn't do it for Dad or for Mother. Dad's plans had been shitty and his intentions worse, and if I'd been in Caine's position, I'd probably have done what Caine did. I just-- Killing Caine had nothing to do with killing Caine. It was a blood sacrifice to satisfy all of the parts of me that I didn't want to keep.

I didn't figure that part out until long after Caine's funeral. I don't suppose that the reason mattered one good goddamn to Caine or to anyone who loved him. He wasn't less dead, and I didn't regret killing him.

None of the things that had happened to my father-- the things he chose or didn't-- were things I could change. None of them were things I'd chosen or allowed or done myself. I wasn't responsible for any of them. This thing with Mother and Merlin, however--

I wasn't thirteen any more, and I knew Mother. I should have taken care of the resupply myself. I shouldn't even have told her I had him imprisoned. I should have been sure about what I wanted before I ever took him to that cave. I could have taken time for that before as easily as after.

I might have owed Merlin an apology, even before I asked Mother to make sure he didn't starve.

"I'm glad I came in time," I told Mother. I lied. I didn't want Merlin dead, but I also didn't want to know this about my mother. I didn't want to have to choose his death or hers because I couldn't replace either of them. 

Maybe I could talk her around. Maybe.

I let one hand hover over Mother's belly. "May I?"

"Of course." The tone of her voice told me that she was indulging me as she would have before I was old enough to shave. "They're kicking now."

I could feel that. I didn't like the complications that came with understanding that I would have another person to consider in my upcoming decision.

"Twins," Merlin said without any particular inflection. "A boy and a girl." His shoulders slumped a bit.

Two more people.

Merlin clearly didn't think I was going to help. The person he remembered probably wouldn't have. I wouldn't have understood.

"Brand and Clarissa," Mother said.

I didn't wince, but the names kind of underlined that Mother hadn't been listening to anything Dalt had reported about Dad's siblings.

Merlin met my eyes and shrugged, denying responsibility. For a moment, he looked exhausted, not physically, just in all other ways, almost as if he'd been emotionally hollowed out.

My fault.

I couldn't possibly talk Mother far enough around to get to the point of letting Merlin go. Keeping him prisoner, even if the... circumstances... changed, wouldn't be good for him. Was there a way I could get him out?

Could I talk Merlin around? Would he let me try? I could probably protect my mother from Merlin.

Then I remembered Ghostwheel. He complicated things considerably.

Merlin and Ghostwheel aside, I might not be able to protect my mother from anyone at all if those names were her idea of subtlety. They were kind of an announcement of intention. Dalt got away with a hell of a lot because Amber didn't take him seriously. They didn't connect him to Dad.

I'd known that subtlety wasn't Mother's strong suit because, while putting me on the throne of Kashfa was on the borders of feasible because I could very easily be one of Oberon's bastards, doing it while we were undertaking a vendetta against the royal family of Amber was... not sustainable. I could be known to Amber, or I could murder members of Amber's royal family. I'd figured that out, eventually.

Mother and Merlin could both survive this... situation... if I managed it right. It was even easy if I didn't consider my sister and brother.

Under the circumstances, there weren't a lot of people I'd trust to look after those two. I wanted to scream and cry over my newfound certainty that Mother wasn't even on the list.

The shittiest thing Merlin had ever done-- as far as I knew-- was how he'd handled Julia at the end. He hadn't killed her or cursed her. He just hadn't ever told her that it was over and had let her keep trying to pull him back to intimacy.

Maybe Merlin could let vengeance go? If he couldn't, maybe he'd still let me take the kids? If I could talk to him privately, I could ask. We were kind of in the center of Mother's territory, though, and she'd stop me if I tipped my hand.

"I didn't mean to interrupt your meal," I said. "I just wanted you to know that I'm here before I go and wash and probably nap." I didn't want a nap, but a shower wouldn't be a terrible thing. I'd been on the road a while without washing.

Mostly, what I wanted was time to think. Then I'd have to figure out how to talk to Merlin without Mother knowing. If he hadn't already left or called for help, it was because he couldn't rather than because he didn't want to.

Mother waved a hand to dismiss me and said, "I'll expect you here for supper."

I bowed and left the room.

I ended up using a Trump to call Ghostwheel while I was still in my bathroom. I was dressed again, but I still had the shower running. Mother wouldn't spy on me in there. Probably. 

Bringing in Ghostwheel was a terrible idea and might well mean I'd have to explain a bunch of things that I'd... misled him about. This could all blow up rather spectacularly, but the other options were only going to delay the explosion. 

After Ghostwheel answered, I took a steadying breath and said, "I need to talk to you somewhere private and fast-time enough that it won't look like I've done more than take a really long shower." 

"I could bring you here," he said.

I didn't have the equipment that I'd need to survive in his native Shadow. "I'd like to be able to breathe," I told him, "and I don't think we have time for getting equipment."

"Picky," he said.

I gave him a disbelieving stare. "I know you know survivability parameters for humans."

"I guess I'm wondering why this is so important."

I scrubbed a hand over my face. "Merlin's in trouble." I hadn't wanted to lead with that. "It's... I don't know enough about what's going on to judge what things will help and what will bring everything crashing down." If my mother was spying on me, I now had a countdown until she tried to stop me. 

If my mother was spying on me, I hoped she wasn't doing it in real time. She usually had better things to do with her time.

Ghostwheel made a noise that sounded very like Merlin at the moment when the troubling extra pieces of a problem suddenly shifted and made sense.

"Speed matters," I said. I braced myself because I didn't expect Ghostwheel to be gentle. Something within survivability parameters wasn't necessarily going to be comfortable.

Ghostwheel swallowed me and spat me out somewhere with cold, thin air and no light but the glow of Ghostwheel's spinning avatar. What I could see of the world was dry, hard packed soil with no vegetation or rocks. I couldn't see walls, but I also didn't feel wind or hear anything beyond my own movements.

I felt like I'd been dumped upside down into a barrel and shaken for twenty minutes, so it took me several seconds to find breath to speak. "I'm really glad I got dressed before I called you," I said. I wanted very badly not to sound like a petitioner or-- worse-- a penitent villain. I might be both by certain definitions, but I really didn't want Ghostwheel starting from those assumptions.

"Merlin," Ghostwheel said implacably. "You have information about Merlin. I haven't been able to find him."

Which meant that Ghostwheel had been running a brute force search of Shadow. Mother must have blocked Merlin's access to Trump, probably even suppressed his power signature. I wondered how hard Ghostwheel had been looking. Surely, he'd have told me if he'd reached a panic point?

Unless he'd developed a higher level of functional paranoia than I'd seen in him before.

"It's a lot easier to imprison a person like me or Merlin than it is to imprison a person like you." I wasn't completely sure that Ghostwheel was a person rather than some other type of self-aware consciousness, but he acted young, and I really didn't know where the borders of my own definition of 'person' lay. Debating semantics would only hurt everyone. I sighed and sat down on the ground. "How much did Merlin tell you about his relatives? About history and the two Patterns and the Logrus?"

About why I should never have been allowed to know the location of Ghostwheel's physical self.

"I have the family tree. On both sides. Merlin says that people aren't nice to each other." Ghostwheel hesitated noticeably. "Random told him to kill me. Ordered him to. I-- He _could_. He didn't say no." Ghostwheel sounded worried.

I hadn't heard that part before. It explained a few things. "Saying no to a king when you're in his castle is..." I shook my head. I didn't know that Merlin hadn't meant to do it, not for sure; it just seemed like an unlikely thing for him to be willing to do. "King Random could have arrested Merlin and sent someone else to do the job." I set my jaw for a moment. "There'd probably have been torture involved in getting your location. I'm pretty sure that dissecting your programming would be part of killing you."

Random can't have known that Ghostwheel called Merlin 'Dad' or that the relationship had emotional weight on both sides.

"Oh." Ghostwheel's response was almost inaudible.

"That might be better than-- Look, most people will have one of two reactions to you. They'll want to destroy you, or they'll want to enslave you. I'd expect controlling magic--" Because that was what I'd been considering. "--You don't have a lot of potential hostages, and I can't imagine anyone but Merlin understanding how the hell he programmed you. Tinkering with your code risks breaking what would make you useful."

I'm still not sure if Ghostwheel figured out that I was explaining things that I'd considered doing if making friends failed.

"You might be better off," I added because Merlin would have, "just avoiding anyone with the power to manipulate Shadow. I can't think that anyone would find you, physically, unless they were looking and knew what they were looking for." Of course, if Ghostwheel took that to heart, he wouldn't help me with my current problems.

"You won't be able to leave here without my help." Ghostwheel sounded confident of that, but I wasn't sure he was taking Werewindle into account.

I hoped not. "Then Merlin is very likely going to die." Ghostwheel could probably rescue Merlin without my help once I told him where Merlin was. That would leave me utterly fucked if Ghostwheel-- or Merlin-- decided to be an asshole about it and if I couldn't escape this Shadow. I just wasn't sure enough about what Ghostwheel really wanted to be able to bargain.

I kind of suspected that the best case for what Merlin wanted was beating the shit out of me. Depending on how he felt about the children my mother was carrying, I might have them for leverage. I wasn't enthusiastic about letting my survival-- or my mother's-- rely on that. I'd heal from a beating. My mother was more fragile, and infants, no matter what their parentage, are horrifically vulnerable.

I took a deep breath and wished for more oxygen in the air. "I would like to have everyone survive," I said. "My mother did something-- more than one thing-- stupid and very cruel to Merlin. I don't want her hurt." I hesitated, trying to come up with words to explain that.

"I wouldn't want Merlin hurt because I hurt you," Ghostwheel said, "or because he hurt you."

I winced because I didn't hear anything in that to indicate that _my_ feelings mattered. 

Ghostwheel understood; he might or might not care. 

"He hasn't, and you haven't. I--" I needed to be really, really careful about what I said here. "--I put him somewhere that he couldn't get out of because I needed time to think. He's important to me, but there are other people who matter to me, too, and I wasn't sure I could have both. He needed more supplies, and I wasn't able to get back, so I asked my mother to take care of it." I shrugged with one cupped and empty hand. "I trusted her."

I looked away from Ghostwheel and spent several seconds trying to see something-- anything-- through the darkness. "You can't-- Please. She's pregnant with twins, Merlin's children, your siblings." I hoped Ghostwheel would consider that something important that made the babies worthy of protection. "Whatever she did to Merlin, those two are blameless. I--"

Merlin might want the twins. I wasn't sure how he'd be at raising human children, but he'd done a lot better with Ghostwheel than I'd have predicted. If Merlin didn't want the twins-- or if Ghostwheel didn't-- I'd figure something out. Even if Merlin wanted revenge, it wouldn't be against babies, so he'd let me do that much. Probably.

"If my mother realizes that I'm planning to challenge her, she'll probably use magic to-- to manipulate my mind so that I cooperate. That's why I was worried about the timing. Yanking Merlin out and running would be easy or, at least, feasible. The twins haven't been born yet." I wondered if Ghostwheel understood what that meant, so I elaborated. "That means we have to choose, either leave them behind to get Merlin out or risk staying where she's powerful in order to be there when they're born."

"We could take her somewhere where she isn't powerful."

I'd really been hoping he wouldn't think of that. I closed my eyes. At least, he accepted the premise that my siblings were important enough not to leave behind. "I don't know what she can do," I admitted. My entire bargaining position rested on Ghostwheel liking me, Merlin forgiving me, and one or the other of them giving a single flying fuck about the babies. "She's my mother." I doubted Ghostwheel would understand the full freight of that or what it meant that I had chosen to be where I was.

Merlin would have. Merlin definitely would have. Depending on how bad things had been, he might not care.

The fact that I had no idea how bad things might have been-- I probably did owe Merlin an apology.

I really hoped that Merlin would be okay.

"Why shouldn't I just yank Merlin out of there now?" Ghostwheel sounded like he'd already decided on the course of action and wanted me to apologize for not leading with the suggestion.

"Because we don't know how she's keeping him there. Unless you do?"

"I don't." Now Ghostwheel sounded frustrated, a little angry even.

"Can you ask him in a way that won't be overheard?" I hesitated. "Also... Ask him if-- If you can pull him out, ask first if he wants to stay long enough for the birth. If he knows that you can, he might decide that waiting is worthwhile." I cleared my throat. "I-- I would like to talk with Merlin about what happens to my mother and her children."

I was prepared to take the babies and run as far as Pattern would take us to escape this shit show. I'd prefer to take my mother, too, but I couldn't force her, and I might not-- I might have to choose. Babies, at least, couldn't resist physically.

But the babies were more likely to remain safe if I left them with Merlin and Ghostwheel than Mother was.


	2. Chapter 2

For a very long time, Ghostwheel said nothing, just left me sitting in the dirt, waiting to hear how bad it would be. I could spin a lot of terrible and plausible scenarios. Eventually, I realized that this was the time differential working against me. Ghostwheel had to talk to Merlin at the speed of the Shadow where Merlin was. Time here passed much faster than time there because I had asked for that.

I might end up waiting a very long time. I supposed I should be glad that Ghostwheel was still present and still casting light.

I was thirsty and starting to get hungry by the time Ghostwheel spoke again. "Merlin says that removing his chains requires hands that aren't his. I don't have hands."

"Here or there?" I pushed myself to my feet and started brushing dust off my clothing. I hadn't seen chains. Possibly they were invisible? 

No. Mother would want everyone-- everyone but me-- to see the proof of her power. She hadn't been expecting me when I walked into the room. She'd have wanted to tell me about the twins well before she mentioned their father. She might not have mentioned the father until it came time for them to walk the Pattern.

I probably wouldn't have thought to ask. I might have thought whatever tale she gave me about Merlin to be a lie, but I wouldn't have guessed.

"Here," Ghostwheel said. "Well, not _here_ \-- I wouldn't do that to Merlin-- but not there, either. Somewhere like this but with light. Merlin's there already."

Which meant two things-- First, that Ghostwheel was offering me the courtesy of a warning which boded well for my survival. Second, that Mother had hurt Merlin worse than I'd let myself fear which wasn't so great for any of us.

I put one arm across my eyes because I was pretty sure that the sudden transition to light would be painful. I wasn't wrong. "Sorry," I said while I was still blinking at the brightness that was filtering around my arm. "Give me a few seconds, please."

"A few seconds, I can manage," Merlin said dryly. There was more life in the words than there'd been in anything he'd said in front of Mother. "For someone arriving so late, you've..." There was anger in the words, anger I deserved. "I can't fault your speed on this part."

"I didn't know," I said, trying to put as much real apology into the words as I could. "I asked her to take you _supplies_."

"I ran out of food."

I'd figured that part out. I lowered my arm a little then winced as the increased light made my eyes water. "Mother's good at tactics," I said. I still couldn't see very well, but the air felt warmer and heavier, and I thought I smelled vegetation and damp earth. "You'll have to tell me what needs to be done." I blinked several times and lowered my arm completely. Looking at the ground helped.

"The things on my arms," Merlin said. "They're specifically locked against me, but the mechanism isn't complicated. A little pressure and a little magic will do it."

It took slightly more than that but not much. Mother's magic had changed a little, and I had to match the change. Her magic felt like corrupted Pattern. When the damned things hit the ground, I said, "Those feel nasty, how they're powered, I mean, not just what they do."

"Hm." Merlin prodded one with a toe. He wasn't wearing shoes, not even slippers.

I didn't want to know if that was a sign of how fast he'd wanted to leave or if my mother just hadn't given him footwear.

"I don't know if she made them for me, specifically, or if she just... had them already."

"No idea." I still hadn't looked at his face. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry."

"Why?"

I was under no illusions that he was asking why I was sorry. He understood that part. "I needed time to figure out how I felt about you and what I was willing to-- I can't have everything I thought I wanted, and I had to figure out if I was wrong about what I wanted. I couldn't deal with you until after, so when my timer told me you were a week from running out of--" I choked on the words.

"Look at me, Luke."

I sighed and didn't raise my eyes. "I'm taking a little time to pretend none of it happened." I raked one hand through my hair. "I think I hate all of the things that might come next." I forced my eyes toward his throat then upward, again, to his nose.

Not the eyes. Not yet.

"That's not part of what I want," Merlin said. He put a hand on my arm, just the lightest pressure but very definitely there. "I don't trust Jasra even a millimeter, and I'm pissed at you, but I don't want you to hate anything that happens. I'd rather--"

I finally met his eyes. "She's my mother."

He nodded. "Yeah, and my mother would have done the same thing in the same circumstances." He didn't sound happy about that. "I never told you about how my parents met, did I?"

I blinked. I knew who his parents were, but I hadn't been supposed to know and hadn't ever thought about the circumstances that resulted in... Merlin. My parents had loved each other and had both wanted me. The idea that Merlin hadn't had those things tilted my mental image of him. The breath I drew in was shaky. I exhaled to get rid of that. "I can't make her do-- or not do-- anything."

I thought, based on his expression, that he understood the question I wasn't asking directly.

He looked away. "I hate her."

"Yeah, and she's still my mother."

"When you stopped trying to murder me, she took over the job. She was watching. She... She _recruited_ Julia."

I suspect I looked like I'd been sucker punched. "Fuck." I shook my head. "Gail?"

"No. More because Jasra couldn't find her." There was a trace of accusation in that.

"You didn't think I--?" 

Judging by how he was looking at me, he'd definitely considered it.

I stepped back and raised both hands, palms outward. "My word on it. She was home and fine the last I knew. I tried to leave the Shadow set so that her life would be... generally good. Maybe that protected her?" Having Mother find her would definitely not have been in Gail's best interest. Even at my most innocent, I'd have understood that. "I didn't want to pull her into any of this bullshit."

She hadn't wanted me to go. She'd asked why, and I hadn't explained. The last thing she'd said to me was, "It's Merlin, isn't it?"

I hadn't even looked at her after she asked the question.

"I believe you," Merlin said.

I wasn't sure why he would. "My family doesn't have a great track record on truth," I admitted. I turned my back on Merlin and looked at the terrain. There was a creek, and I wondered if the water was safe. I was still thirsty. "What are you going to do?"

"First, I tattle." Merlin sounded a little like he thought it was funny. "Jasra's got one of my brothers, too. Not as a prisoner, as an ally. I'd rather have him gone before I... talk... with Jasra."

"Oh." Was I going to have to start thinking about my siblings doing stupid ass things? Maybe I'd have a few years before they were mobile enough to get into trouble. I wasn't quite sure how long it took babies to become capable of-- When did they start being able to make the big, potentially lethal mistakes? When did they get old enough to learn caution? When had I gotten old enough for either? "I have a foster brother," I offered without turning to look at Merlin. "Things are good with him."

What was Dalt going to think about the choices I was making?

"I have three brothers," Merlin said. "Jurt's the only one who'd do this. Luke--"

I almost turned back, but I really didn't want to deal with all of this shit right then. "I'm going to see if the water's drinkable. Your conversation with Ghostwheel took a long time where I was."

I knelt by the creek and looked at the water. Normally, I'd just shift Shadow enough to be sure it was clean, and I'd actually tried to as I walked toward the bank, more because doing that was habit than because I thought it would work, and it hadn't gotten me anything. 

I decided that I could probably risk drinking. As far as I know, no one with the blood of Oberon ever died from bad water. I bent and scooped water into my mouth. When I'd had enough, I splashed water on my face and neck. I'd been clean when I called Ghostwheel, but I felt thoroughly filthy, now, in ways that had nothing to do with the state of my skin.

Merlin knelt next to me, just out of arm's reach. "I'm not going to hurt you, Luke. I won't hurt my kids, either."

"You may not have a choice," I told him. "The moment she realizes you're gone, she's going to run. She'll hide those kids somewhere out of the way and come after you with an axe. No matter what comes of that, those two will grow up knowing that they exist to hurt you."

"Is that what she did to you?"

I laughed because it was better than throwing up. "I was thirteen. I did it to myself. Mostly. She would have, though."

"And you have a suggestion for avoiding that?" Merlin's tone was gentle, coaxing. He knew me well enough to be sure that I did have ideas.

"Only one that will work." That was kind of a lie. My priorities were different from Merlin's.

He could resolve a lot of this simply by murdering my mother as soon as his children were grown enough not to need further gestation.

I had chosen to make that possible. I'd known I was doing it. "You need me as hostage." I glanced sideways at him, trying to gauge his reaction. "She's my _mother_ , Merlin. I know her, and I know you. If you go back there before the babies are born, she will attack you. She'll assume that you'll hesitate to risk them and that that means she can get away with hurting you."

She'd be right, too. If she weren't right, Merlin would already have gone after her. There'd have been damn all that I could do to stop him. I had gambled that he'd hesitate, that he'd accept a plan that wouldn't kill her. I'd relied on the probability that-- because he was Merlin and because my sins against him were relatively minor-- he wouldn't want to hurt me that badly.

That was the other reason I'd committed to getting him out fast. If I'd waited too long, he'd have counted it against me.

"For how long, Luke?" He wasn't asking how long we'd need to pretend that he might kill me. He was asking how much of my life I was willing to sacrifice to keep my mother alive.

"As long as required." The century I'd already lived had felt long, but most of Oberon's children had had many centuries without a single one of them dying of age. I had time. I scooped more water from the creek. Drinking didn't help the dryness in my throat. In spite of that, I said, "As long as you require, too."

He made a sound of disbelief.

"She's my mother. You're my whatever-the-hell you are. Threatening me will make her bend. If she believes you mean it." I'd probably need to be bleeding. I wasn't looking forward to that part. It probably meant Merlin putting those nasty power-canceling cuffs on me, too.

"Threatening you would make me bend, too."

It was transparently a lie, but I didn't call him on it.

Merlin used something he called the Logrus to bring me food. He even brought us chairs and a folding table. "That--" He pointed at something that looked like a slice of pecan pie. "--is alcoholic enough to affect me. I thought it would be better to have something that wouldn't spill. And it'll taste better than the shit we drank in college."

Strong enough to affect Merlin meant I really shouldn't eat the pie first, so I ate some bread, dipping it into some sort of oil with herbs, then followed it with a slice of melon. I had a solid lump of food in my belly before I ate the first bite of pie.

Merlin didn't say anything else until I polished off the last of the pie. At that point, he offered me a second slice. 

I accepted it but didn't start in immediately. "What now?"

"Now..." Merlin looked away. "You want to protect her." It wasn't even remotely a question, but I nodded anyway. "The price of that is serious risk. There are a limited number of people I'd trust to help with this, and I don't think you're going to like any of them holding the knife."

"Why not you?" I knew the answer before the words were out of my mouth.

Merlin looked at me like he didn't understand why I'd bothered asking. "Ghostwheel's not sure he could grab her without, um, complications. I'll need my hands free and my attention on Jasra."

"I got there," I told him. I closed my eyes. "You could do all of this without my permission." I'd even understand if he did.

"Yeah, and you knew that before you brought in Ghostwheel."

I nodded without opening my eyes. "You trusted me," I said. "You were wrong to but not this wrong." I opened my eyes and met his. "Whatever Mother did-- I don't want to know. Please-- Whatever she did has to have changed you, but I was never wrong to trust you." I really hoped he wasn't going to give me details about my mother having raped him. "Pick someone."

"Martin," he said. "If not him, then Florimel. Beyond that, we have to go to the Courts, and that's a much bigger risk for you."

Martin's was not a name I wanted to hear, especially not as first choice. I swallowed hard. I knew less about our Aunt Florimel. "I trust you." I tried to make the words firm.

"I'm sure that I can protect you from Martin."

It was good to hear that Merlin had considered that aspect of the matter.

"I'm sure I can protect Jasra from Flora."

I winced. "That's a really shitty choice for me."

Merlin shrugged. "Better odds than if I ask my mother or my stepbrother. I don't think I can protect either of you from either of them." Judging by the expression on his face, he wasn't sure he could protect himself from either of them and really didn't want to think about that part. "I could go to someone outside my House, but that'll be both of us writing blank checks."

"Aunt Florimel, then."

Merlin's expression sharpened, and I realized that he'd wanted to know how much Mother's safety really mattered to me. "Luke--" He sighed and looked away. "If she'd had any sort of notice that you were coming-- You know, don't you?"

"I know." I did. "I still--" I pulled my shoulders up toward my ears. "If I'd argued with her..." I didn't want to know if Mother would try her mind control magic on me over this. "You must have had some sort of defense against her using magic on your mind. Most of her lovers, even the ones who didn't want to be, haven't needed physical leashes."

He went completely still, and I realized I'd just given him something else to hold against my mother. "You don't have defenses."

"I might. I might not." I wobbled a hand back and forth. "I'm older than she thinks I am, and I don't think she's had a lot of chances to enchant people who have Pattern." I should have worked on protections while I was finding myself. I hadn't, but I should have at least considered it.

My not having bothered might well be the part of this that pissed Dalt off the worst.

"How old does she think you are?" I'd never heard that level of threat from Merlin before. It wasn't aimed at me, but he was angry.

Maybe Merlin and Dalt could find common ground in this. It would be nice if I could introduce them and not have it blow up in my face.

I smiled and managed to make it look real. "I was eighteen when we went to college. I fit a lot of extra time in between classes. I don't think she realizes I'm over forty."

"How much over forty are you?" Merlin sounded like he thought I might shatter if he breathed on me wrong.

I narrowed my eyes at him. "Into triple digits, not all the way to four."

Apparently 'triple digits' was a necessary threshold because he relaxed a little. "But on the younger end of that," he said.

It wasn't a question, so I didn't answer it. He wouldn't have believed the lie now that he knew it might be there. "I'm not sure she would have tried it. She might just have expected me to believe she knew what she was doing and to want to please her more than I wanted--" I shook my head. "She just doesn't like it when I judge her for... bad decisions."

"She said I had too much influence over you."

"You do." I started eating the second piece of pie. 

He gave a startled laugh. "Fair." He stood. "I'm going to talk to Aunt Flora."

I wasn't actually surprised, later, to find out that he'd talked to Martin, too. Having someone else standing by in case it all went sideways was only sensible.


	3. Chapter 3

Princess Florimel of Amber looked like she belonged in some sort of film noir classic. Her expression when she looked at me could have fractured a diamond, but her smile for Merlin was completely sincere, and the hug she gave him was tight enough to tell me she'd been worried. "I should have noticed you were missing," she told him fiercely. "I'm sorry."

The hug was for Merlin. The words were for me. There was no chance that she hadn't already said those words to Merlin before he and Ghostwheel invited her in.

Merlin hadn't been lying when he implied that Aunt Florimel might be dangerous to me. She understood that Mother was a short term threat. She understood, too, that everything that had happened with Mother and Merlin and me might be part of a longer term plan with a much more vicious endgame.

It wasn't, as far as I knew, but it could have been.

I could have been a lot older than I'd told Merlin I was. I could have been lying about who my parents were. I could even have been lying about killing Caine. I could have been trying to solidify my emotional hold on Merlin and use it to get hooks into her, too.

Aunt Florimel and I smiled at each other, neither of us meaning it. Not even Merlin thought we did, but he smiled at both of us anyway. We all kept smiling as I raised my hands and let Merlin put those power suppressing cuffs on me. 

As they closed, I felt like something was tearing off large chunks of my psyche. Staying upright was suddenly difficult. I hadn't expected it to be that bad.

Merlin put a hand on my shoulder. "Should have thought. I was unconscious when those damned things went on, and when I woke, I was already expecting to feel like shit because the last thing I remembered was starving."

I leaned into his hand because I needed the support. I swallowed hard. "I'll get used to it."

"Good," Aunt Florimel said. She bared her teeth. "You'll be wearing them for a while."

"I'm going to need to leave you and the kids with Aunt Flora for a few weeks," Merlin said apologetically. "I don't have anywhere safe to take you, not yet."

I nodded because that made sense. I met Aunt Florimel's eyes and took a deep breath. "Thank you for the hospitality," I told her.

I didn't guess at the time, but I'm almost certain, now, that Aunt Florimel made those weeks of me on Earth without Merlin a condition for giving Merlin her help. Merlin and I, together, could certainly have managed keeping the twins safe from Mother while Merlin built his Ways.

I turned back to Merlin. "I think I'd rather sleep through your... discussion... with Mother." I didn't have it in me, right then, to look at my mother and lie.

"All right," Merlin said. His hand moved to cup my cheek. "I'll wake you when it's done."

****

Merlin made sure that I was awake and knew which child was which before he took off. That didn't keep me from feeling abandoned when he left us in Aunt Florimel's care. The only thing that kept me from panicking was that I could still see the spinning wheel of light that indicated Ghostwheel's continued presence.

Aunt Florimel's smile was no more reassuring than it had been before Merlin put me to sleep. She gestured at a very large house. "You can stay here. I won't be letting anyone else into the Shadow until Merlin comes back." She nodded firmly.

I was pretty sure I was supposed to take that as a warning that help wasn't coming, but one of the babies started crying, so I didn't give her the response she so obviously wanted. I started muttering nonsense and bouncing both babies. I was really wishing for a third arm right then.

Aunt Florimel had watched Corwin living on Earth for long enough that she understood how helpless I would be to defend myself with no powers. She considered that a feature because it meant I couldn't attack her. She hadn't been on Earth during the parts when Corwin almost died because he didn't know where he was or how the rules worked. She forgot about that difficulty.

She can't quite have gotten the intersection of no powers with caring for two babies and me having just blown up my own support system. I don't think she meant it to be potentially lethal for the kids. They were Merlin's, after all. Having me suffer would amuse her; having them suffer-- I really don't think it occurred to her.

She threw some money-- a lot of money, actually-- at me and decamped, leaving me with the house-- mansion really-- and two cars and a bunch of other things that would help eventually. 

Apparently, screaming babies and dirty diapers weren't attractive.

If she'd understood risk to the babies, she'd have thrown a couple of competent parents at me before she left. She could have. If I'd been together enough to ask, she probably would have provided. 

I hadn't had time to think about it. I'd thought I would. Having Merlin put me to sleep had been a serious miscalculation.

The idea that I didn't have any cushion of time to figure out what the hell I was doing didn't seem to have occurred to her, either, because I didn't hear from her for almost three weeks.

I don't think it ever occurred to her, not even once, that I might be emotionally fucked up about having betrayed my mother and beyond terrified that I was going to accidentally but seriously harm my siblings. I wasn't even sure what country we were in.

I'd have managed somehow. At least, I like to think so.

But Ghostwheel saved my ass. He really did. He didn't leave us alone, and he figured out fast that I was drowning. I'm not sure how long it took him to decide on a solution, but, from my point of view, I was only parenting solo for about six hours. That was more than long enough for me to realize that I didn't have the tools to get the things I needed. I didn't have any way to carry the babies and still have my arms free. I didn't have a way to carry them and shop. 

Hell, I didn't have a way to put them in the car and drive without risking them sliding off the seats the first time I hit a pothole. I was fairly thorough about searching the house, and the most useful thing I found in that direction was duct tape. It would have worked for holding them in place in a way that seatbelts couldn't. 

I was almost sure that duct taping babies to cars, even to the actual seats inside, was illegal in any reasonable country. Having no powers meant that all I could do about a cop was sweet talking, and someone would see me getting the kids out of the car. People in a parking lot at a baby supply store probably paid attention to things like that.

That was before the kids started shapeshifting.

If I took them out and they stopped looking human... I knew Earth well enough to know that even the best case for that was bad for all three of us. I was still strong. I'd still heal fast. I was one person with no backup. I'd die, and my brother and sister would be unprotected.

I asked Ghostwheel to tell Merlin that we were having problems. Ghostwheel told me that Merlin was in the middle of something that couldn't be interrupted without catastrophic results. I considered asking Ghostwheel to tell Aunt Florimel, but I wasn't that desperate yet.

Possibly shapeshifting babies could eat a wider variety of things than a bog standard human baby could. Possibly they could be potty trained in thirty seconds so they wouldn't need diapers. Possibly I could get them to watch that dancing purple dinosaur for long enough for me to sneak out to the store. If they were going to cry until they got food, maybe they'd be okay crying without me there. Maybe our mother wouldn't find them while I wasn't there to protect them.

I was already really low on sleep.

Fortunately, Ghostwheel managed to find me help before I tested any of those possiblies and maybes. The three shapeshifters were all really bewildered, and none of them spoke a language I could understand, but one of them knew what to do with babies. I suspect Ghostwheel would have kept throwing people at us until he found one capable of the job.

The manager of the local Babies R Us was kind of unnerved to find herself suddenly in Aunt Florimel's library, but I managed to persuade her that she'd just lost track of my having called her and her having taken a cab to the house to meet with me.

That took some fast talking and really only worked because I had a lot of cash to dazzle her. I was willing to let her pick out whatever the father of newborn twins might expect to need-- unlimited budget-- as long as she got it delivered in the next few hours. If I got the necessities, the useless crap wasn't going to hurt me. Worst case, Aunt Florimel ended up with a few rooms full of ridiculous junk.

Since I had no idea at that point which things were necessities and which were useless crap, getting everything made sense.

Ghostwheel was watching us in case Mother turned up. She knew Earth, and we three children were-- technically-- hostages for her good behavior. She thought I wanted to be rescued. She might be able to make me think I wanted to be rescued.

She was going to be so far beyond pissed when she realized what I'd done. She'd probably convince herself that someone else was controlling my mind. She'd probably cry as much as she had when my father died, as much as she had the first few days after she realized that his plan to rewrite the universe could never work the way he said it would.

We were only on Earth until Merlin had someplace safer to stash us. I was still wearing the cuffs because Aunt Florimel wouldn't let me stay in the Shadow without them. I was staying because I wasn't willing to trust her with my siblings unsupervised.

I took several months, after, to realize that, from Aunt Florimel's point of view, leaving me alone was a test. She wanted to give me enough rope to hang myself, the sooner the better. She was watching, just from a safe distance relative to the screaming babies. I think she gambled that whatever I was scheming actually required the twins alive and healthy. She was willing to risk it because she valued the other, older members of her family more.

I don't know that she realized that Ghostwheel was a much scarier jailor than she ever could be, and I'm quite sure that she didn't understand the risks my incompetence posed to the twins. Possibly, she'd have figured that part out if I'd had to start banging on doors to beg for help from the neighbors. I doubt she'd have cared one way or another about her neighbors-- either their safety or their opinions-- but she had to be monitoring me somehow if she was trying to get my measure.

She had a narrow window-- however long Merlin was gone-- to decide if she was going to off me to protect herself and Merlin and the rest of her family. Easier to ask forgiveness than permission and all of that, and she pretty certainly underestimated Ghostwheel as both witness and active participant. 

There were probably a dozen different lines I could have crossed that would have made her bring the axe down. I doubt she realized that looking after two newborns meant that I wouldn't have time for slipping up and revealing my nefarious plans.

The idea of having only Ghostwheel protecting me from assassination by Aunt Florimel-- Now, I'd rely on him for it without hesitation. Then, he might very well not have understood what was happening, not in time to save me. He might also have simply trusted her over me. If I'd realized the risk I was taking-- Well, it wouldn't have changed anything, actually, because I'd narrowed my choices to the point that everything after I first Trumped Ghostwheel was like walking the Pattern. There was only one place for each step after the first.

After I gave the Babies R Us manager carte blanche to spend Aunt Florimel's money, I ordered pizza. There was no way in hell that I was cooking right then. I had a pantry full of non-perishables and an empty refrigerator.

The process of ordering was a bit trial and error because Aunt Florimel thought phone books were aesthetically displeasing and kept them packed away where she wouldn't have to see them. She didn't need them, not personally, not when she could just tweak the Shadow in order to have whatever she dialed be the right number. I eventually found three phone books, none of them recent. All of them were in what I guessed had been servants' quarters.

I ended up with Domino's because, for my third try, I wanted a chain that was pretty certainly still in business. It would be like eating greasy cardboard, but I'd eaten worse.

After I ordered, during my thirty minutes or less, I showed the shapeshifters some basics of household technology. They may well have already understood some of it, but not demonstrating would have been dangerous. I still had no real way to explain things like not flushing the wrong stuff down the toilet. 

I just hoped that anything getting stuck in the plumbing would only block one line instead of all of them. The place had a lot of bathrooms. Aunt Florimel seemed to have prepared for a dozen guests who didn't want to share.

I had a vague idea that emergency plumbers were horrifically expensive, possibly even out of my budget, and likely not to show up when asked, and I thought Aunt Florimel might gut me if I dug a latrine in her perfectly landscaped garden. Not to mention that doing that was probably illegal, too.

When the pizza came, I asked the guy doing the delivery to give me directions to a grocery store and a gas station. Chances were good that I could buy local maps at a gas station. I might need to know how to get to a highway. 

I considered the matter for about thirty seconds and decided that there hadn't been enough time for either Mother or Dalt to have gotten past Aunt Florimel and infiltrated the local Domino's franchise, so I offered the delivery guy a job running errands for me. He could get the damned map. He could get flour and carrots and milk and coffee. I suggested it as a one-off thing, but I figured that, if it worked, I could pay him enough that he'd ditch pizza delivery for however long we ended up waiting for Merlin.

It was still a week before I had enough breathing room to ask Ghostwheel if I could speak to my mother to confirm that she was still alive. I hadn't ever quite forgotten that she might not be, but I'd also accepted that that part wasn't going to be my choice.

It wasn't a proper Trump contact because Ghostwheel controlled both ends, but he'd assured me that Mother would be able to see and hear me, so I said, "Mother--"

She turned to look at me. Her eyes were red and shadowed, and her shoulders were tight. If I hadn't remembered the months after Dad died, I'd have thought that she didn't look entirely human. Now... This was what anger and grief and fear looked like on her. This was what constant effort in the face of exhaustion looked like on her.

Someone had been hunting us, then. Now, I thought she was searching for me and for the twins. She might even be testing Aunt Florimel's fences. Mother had been to this Shadow several times before.

Her eyes widened. "Rinaldo--" She reached for me then jumped backward with a hiss of pain.

"We're supervised," I told her. I raised a hand and held it, pressed to a mime's wall, just short of Ghostwheel's boundaries. "No touching allowed."

She scowled at the sight of enchanted metal encircling my wrist.

I wanted to apologize, but her seeing that was part of the point of me raising my arm. I was pretty sure that she wanted to tell me I'd been a fool to free Merlin. I definitely wanted to tell her that she was wrong.

"I'm sorry," she said instead. "I thought--" She shook her head and pressed her lips together. "You look tired."

I shrugged. "Twins. They're a lot of work at this age."

I doubt that Ghostwheel noticed that Mother relaxed when I said that. It would have been fine if he had because I wasn't telling her anything that would help her get to us or locate Merlin. Ghostwheel just wasn't that good at reading human body language then.

"You'll be safer if you don't come after us," I told her. "I'd rather you were safe." I didn't tell her that she couldn't take Merlin now. It would be pointless. Either she already knew, or she wouldn't believe me. "The worst that's happened to me is a baby peeing on me when I try to change a diaper." I hesitated, trying not to sound as if I'd planned my words. "I've got help taking care of them. We've got everything we need."

She didn't look like she completely believed me. "Does he love them?" Her eyes seemed to search my face, and I thought she was really asking _Does he love you?_ which was a question I'd hoped she wouldn't realize mattered.

I nodded. "He does." It was the only reason she was still alive, and the knowledge both comforted and sickened me. I wanted very badly to be precious to Merlin. I just wanted it untainted, and it never would be.

We only talked for a few minutes. There was too much that I wanted to avoid saying. She thought I was afraid of Merlin's retaliation, and I was, just not his retaliation against me.

Mother needed to stay far, far away from Merlin and from their children.

After the conversation ended, Ghostwheel said, "Are you okay, Luke?"

I wasn't, but I had to be. "Will you watch over her for me? Please? I think she's going to have to sleep soon, and she's alone, vulnerable."

"Of course, I will," Ghostwheel said. "It's part of protecting you." His words were both entirely true and far from as comforting as I'd hoped.

After that, I talked to Mother about once a week, even after Merlin came back and moved us to the new Shadow he'd built for us with some sort of Courts of Chaos techniques. He called the place a Ways which was somehow different from a Shadow but also not very different. For a while, I thought it was a cultural or philosophical distinction, but I was wrong. Merlin had yanked pieces out of several Shadows and connected them together.

"It took a while," he told me, "because I had to figure out how to do it. I didn't see why it couldn't work out here as well as nearer the Courts." His tone of voice told me that someone had told him it couldn't be done. Merlin had wanted a Ways, and he'd wanted it here, so he'd made it work.

I resolved to remember never to tell Merlin something was 'impossible.' That would just tell him to try a different angle on the problem. I'd have to lean on 'impolitic' and 'hurtful' and 'efficient resource allocation' and a shit ton of other more difficult to explain reasons not to do things. I thought it might help if I considered it practice for when the twins got older.

Merlin knew I still talked to Mother. We didn't talk about it, not really, but he knew. He also knew that him trying to stop me would only lead to fights.

I suspect that him knowing was another thing that came down to similarities between my relationship with my mother and his with his mother. Dara would have done what Mother had. If Merlin had stolen some of his mother's children-- He hadn't. He wouldn't-- but if... If he had, she'd still be his mother; he'd want to be sure she was safe.

Months and even years failed to make my conversations with Mother easier, but they also didn't get harder. Though she must have noticed, she never commented on the cuffs after they vanished. I suppose, by then, she knew that I hadn't been forced or tricked. Maybe she always had known.


	4. Chapter 4

Merlin kissing me had been a very long time coming. Decades on my side and maybe not quite so long on his. He never said; I never asked. If I'd had any guts-- or sense-- during college, it would have happened then. Of course, then Merlin would have freaked when he found out how old I wasn't.

So maybe it was still better that we hadn't. I hadn't been old enough by Merlin's standards any time before I trapped him in the cave. Weirdly, him finding out how old I'd been at the time eased Merlin's sense of betrayal. He didn't feel betrayed by anything Mother had done, traumatized, yes, but not betrayed. He had felt deeply betrayed by things I had done, but apparently me having still been in double digits made it as forgivable as a toddler's crayon scrawls on a freshly painted wall.

I have no fucking clue what was so magic about passing my 100th birthday, but it made him happier.

He also thought it was adorable that I'd learned Trump artistry as a way of understanding him better. That had been one of the ways I'd worked on figuring out how I felt about him after I left him imprisoned. I'd learned magic for that, too; I'd just done it earlier and had tried to pretend it had nothing to do with Merlin.

He watched me a lot. He looked as if he couldn't figure out what I was going to do next.

I thought he was afraid, and he probably was. He just wasn't afraid of the things I thought he feared.

I could see the tension in him, and I thought it was him waiting for another betrayal. I had hurt him, and Mother had hurt him. I wasn't sure how long that would take to heal. Or if it could at all. I tried very hard not to crowd him, not to make demands. I didn't want to hurt him, and I never forgot the possibility that he might shove me out into Shadow alone. He didn't actually _need_ me for anything. The twins were sufficient hostages for Mother's good behavior now that Merlin had a fortress of his own.

I can only suspect that my own desire made me ridiculously unobservant.

Merlin stuck to watching because he didn't want to risk forcing me. He wanted something better with me than what Mother had had with him. He wanted to be sure that he wasn't simply my only choice. He understood even better than I did how utterly fucked I'd be if he withdrew his protection.

If he had, Aunt Florimel would have told the rest of the family who killed Caine. Julian and Gerard both wanted blood for that murder. I'd have been able to evade them, but I'd never have been able to stop running.

Aunt Florimel told me all of that. She also told me that, if I kept Merlin as my ally for a few centuries by Amber's calendar, even Julian and Gerard would... overlook... my method of introducing myself to the larger family. She'd give me that sliver of opportunity in trade for having chosen to help Merlin.

Merlin hadn't been wrong about Aunt Florimel being more dangerous to me than Martin would have been. Martin turned out to be surprisingly chill about me existing and about everything I'd done. He'd still flay me if I hurt Merlin, but he didn't assume I meant to.

Martin visited about half a dozen times before Merlin finally kissed me. I'm pretty sure he gave Merlin the necessary metaphoric shove to make it happen.

A couple of days after Martin's sixth visit, the twins actually napped at the same time. We had staff to watch them, mostly the same people Ghostwheel had found-- rescued via kidnapping, really, since he didn't seem to have negotiated terms so much as grabbed people who were about to die if he didn't-- to help me when I was parenting solo, but neither of us stayed away for long because we were afraid of missing something important. That afternoon, we took the opportunity to watch a movie. Merlin had found a Shadow where a lot of the entertainment was operatic, complicated, and violent, mostly political maneuvering involving clans.

He said it reminded him of home.

That didn't make me any more interested in visiting the Courts of Chaos.

This time, Merlin sat very close to me and leaned against my side. He twitched when I noticed the proximity and went still in response so as not to frighten him off. He started to pull away, and I finally realized that he thought I was the one who was afraid.

I let myself lean against him in return then said, "I've lost track. Is she the one trying to murder the old guy or the one trying seduce his daughter?" I really didn't remember the character, so I wasn't just pulling the question out of my ass. The story had more than a hundred characters and ran something like seventy hours. Merlin had provided the captioning with a spell that wasn't entirely reliable, especially about names.

"Do you even like these shows?" He sounded tentative, as if he was asking about more than that.

I mostly appreciated the time to sit with him and not have to think about anything important. "As long as you're here and happy, I could watch seventy hours of paint drying and enjoy it."

He gave a startled laugh. "Not just because--?" He broke off and shook his head. "I'm not expecting anything from you. We're not-- We're not characters in something like this." He waved at the screen.

Understanding started to dawn. "I wouldn't mind. The expectations, that is. Zero interest in being part of any sort of..." I shrugged when I couldn't find the word. "What the fuck is the term for a story structured like this? I should have paid more attention to Gail talking literary theory." I let my head rest on his shoulder. "I know you. I could walk out of here tomorrow. You wouldn't let me come back, but you also wouldn't let anyone in the family figure out that I'd gone."

"I'd let you come back."

I sighed. "You shouldn't."

"Planning to try to kill me again?"

I could tell from how his body felt against mine that he wasn't actually worried about that, so I pretended to consider it. "I know your weaknesses better now," I told him. "I could. I'd rather do other things, but I could."

"Other things?"

"No hurry," I told him. "We both have to want to."

Now he was laughing hard. He kept going for several seconds.

I smacked my forehead with the hand that wasn't pressed into Merlin's side. Then I took a moment to breathe. "At least we've both been trying to be careful of each other." Part of me wanted to call it time wasted, but, really, whether or not it had been was going to depend on what came after. "I wasn't even sure you were into dudes."

"That's kind of a terrible word. 'Dudes.' Yes, terrible." Merlin was still laughing. He sounded as if a weight had lifted. "I'm into you. I'm into-- You get the part where I'm not human, right? The part where I'm not innately gendered?"

"I didn't think the kids got it from my side of the family." I kept the words dry. I did tend to forget that it applied to Merlin, too. "But maybe I need to meet Merlin the Shapeshifter a little at a time?"

Merlin stopped laughing, and for a frozen moment, I thought I'd said the wrong thing. "I suppose," he said, "that Merlin the Shapeshifter isn't exactly the same person as Merlin of House Sawall. I don't think I want you to meet Merlin of House Sawall."

I didn't actually understand how Merlin of House Sawall might be that different from regular Merlin, but I nodded anyway. "I don't insist on an introduction." I was curious, not reckless.

Then Merlin kissed me, and I kissed him, all mutual and as sweet as I had dreamed.

We didn't actually get very far before Clayre and Renart woke and needed food. I felt weird about doing anything with the kids awake and nearby. I'm not sure it bothered Merlin; he wasn't very forthcoming about how that sort of thing worked in the Courts. The twins weren't old enough, then, to understand that we existed when they couldn't see us, but I couldn't forget that they would be, and there was something fucked up about the idea of kids realizing that their brother and their father were in love.

I mean, I realized pretty fast that the fucked up part was me not being able to forget that Mother had had sex with Merlin. I was as ashamed about that as if I'd known what she would do and set it up to happen. I had betrayed her for Merlin's sake but not so that I could trap him instead. It hadn't been jealousy or possessiveness that made me do it, but adding sex, even months after, made it feel tawdry at best.

I didn't deserve Merlin. I had never deserved Merlin. I still wanted him, but... Would I have him if Mother hadn't raped him?

I wondered if Aunt Florimel had made me wear those fucking cuffs for so long so that Merlin could ditch me if he wanted to. So that Merlin would have a chance to think about whether or not he actually wanted to keep me without me having opportunity to use whatever-the-hell powers I had to influence him. Making Merlin trust me might very well have been the whole point of everything my mother and I had done.

Nevermind that Merlin had trusted me utterly before the cave-- I had rescued him. I had put him in my debt. I had made myself dependent on his continued presence and care. I had taken Merlin's choice out of the equation entirely, just in a different way than Mother had.

Merlin, of course, had no clue why I suddenly had problems looking at him. "Is something wrong?" he asked me three days after that first kiss. He waved a hand as if to indicate everything around us. "You're acting... different."

I just looked at him. I couldn't explain it without sounding ridiculous because-- from Merlin's point of view-- it was ridiculous. I shrugged and turned away. 

"Did I do something?" He sounded genuinely worried about it. "I thought--"

I couldn't let him blame himself, so I said, "I'm just feeling like I'm-- With you and Mother and the kids, did I do it all for the right reasons?" That was blunter than I'd have been with anyone who wasn't Merlin.

Merlin didn't answer for several seconds, and I couldn't bring myself to look at him. "Luke, you do know it doesn't matter one good goddamn _why_ you rescued me?" He sounded like he meant it.

I turned to stare at him. "How is it that you're allowed out without a minder?" It came out fonder and less incredulous than I intended. "Even you don't believe that." I hoped he didn't, anyway. Ghostwheel and Martin and Aunt Florimel and I, even working together, couldn't protect him in the face of that naivete. He'd made betraying him so easy that I'd assumed he was ignorant, that he'd know better now. He'd manipulated Mother well enough to stay alive for months, and he'd understood pretty clearly what she was doing and why.

Merlin smiled at me. "Nobody can stop me," he told me. "I go where I want and with whom."

I don't know why I'd thought he'd changed. His words and the way he said them-- I felt like he'd punched me because I had stopped him. Mother had stopped him. "Merlin--" There were a lot of explanations for the things I'd done that meant intent to hurt Merlin down the road. They weren't my reasons-- I was almost sure they weren't my reasons-- but they made the truth about my motives matter.

"I can give you space forever," he said. "I will if you need it."

"Why?" That word felt like it had been wrenched out of me.

He studied my face, and his hand twitched as if he had started to reach toward me. "Because I want to."

"When I was younger," I told him, "I wanted someone else to make all the choices for me. I wanted one right path forward, and you--" I shook my head. "Did I shatter everything because it was right or because it was you?"

He frowned in the way that usually meant he was about to twist reality into something that nobody else would have thought of. He might do it with words, but he also might actually alter my subjective reality.

"Don't," I said. "Please. I don't know what you're thinking of, but I need the inside of my head to be mine." I didn't really think Merlin would try magic to alter my mind, but it would have been a simple solution from his side, so if I didn't say no, Ghostwheel might try it because he was still iffy on how people worked. His programming could be updated, so why couldn't mine?

Merlin blinked at me. He probably had been about to explain why I'd rescued him, and I'd jumped the tracks. "I won't," he promised. "It's just hard. I can do so much, but I can't fix this, not without changing the past." He still had a look that spoke of intention.

I didn't think even Merlin could reach into the past. I hoped not, anyway. "Leave my past alone, too," I said. "I won't be me if Mother somehow wasn't her." 

"If I was going to try to change your past, I'd focus on your father," he told me very seriously. "I'd make sure you were born, but it's all the shit with him that really fucked you up." He shrugged. "I don't know how to change the real past."

I was-- still am-- more bothered by the things Mother had done to Merlin than by Dad having tried to erase the Pattern, so I only blinked.

His facial expression changed to show me that he had begun thinking about time travel as a challenge. He might not try to change anything important, but he was going to figure out how to change something, just to prove he could. He wouldn't consider the possibility of destroying all of Shadow any more than Corwin had when he decided to make his own Pattern.

Corwin had apparently thought that he was out of options; Merlin just wanted to know if he could crack the problem.

"Don't," I told him as my sense of self-preservation caught up. "You'd probably never be born. Even if you were, you'd never meet Martin. You might actually end up King of Amber and never learn programming."

The idea of no Ghostwheel seemed to get through which was good because I hadn't wanted to get to no Clayre and no Renart. There was too much tied up there that he desperately wanted not to have happened.

That I desperately wanted not to have happened.

"It's all too big," I said. "I can deal with things moment by moment, one step at a time, but I get stuck when I start thinking about all the pieces together." It was even true. I didn't like what it said about my ability to deal with the universe as an adult, but it was true. "I think I just need--" I shrugged. I needed time, but I needed small bits of reflection with other things to occupy me between. "I need to keep busy, too busy to think. Most of the time."

"I'd tell you to build a Ghostwheel," Merlin said, "but that's not how you think, is it?" He tilted his head to one side as his mind worried at the question of what I would consider a worthwhile and engrossing project.

Part of me was fascinated to speculate on what Merlin might come up with. He still tended to surprise me. I just doubted that I could find the sort of focus that Merlin brought to his projects, not unless I had a reason for urgency, so I shook my head. "Not that I wouldn't be thrilled to have a kid like Ghostwheel--" Who was always listening. I didn't want him to think I didn't value him. "--I'm just not an engineer or an inventor or--" I waved a hand to indicate everything else Merlin was that had gone into making Ghostwheel.

"You could start a religion." Merlin sounded quite serious and as if that was a thing a sensible person would suggest. "Make the victory conditions harder by putting, say, Pattern off the table. Pick a Shadow. Convince the people there to live by certain rules and rituals and make something social that will last." He smiled. "Ghostwheel and I will watch and make sure you don't cheat."

"I can be the bad guy," Ghostwheel said. "It'd be more challenging with active opposition."

I hesitated. This sounded like a game I could play. I just couldn't think why I'd do better than half-assing it. Winning wouldn't get me anything, and failure wouldn't cost me anything. "Usually," I said, "I win by changing the rules."

"Not this time," Merlin said. "That would defeat the purpose."

I could see a laugh hiding behind his serious tone, and my lips started to turn upward, too. "I reserve the right to exploit loopholes."

Merlin nodded. "You know we will, too."

"We could just close the loopholes," Ghostwheel said. "In advance, I mean. I bet I could find them all."

Merlin and I exchanged a look. At some point, we'd have to teach Ghostwheel the fine art of navigating loopholes and all of the ways they could be both opportunities and traps. He'd learn that closing one often meant opening another. He'd also learn why tic-tac-toe wasn't actually entertaining.

Merlin shook his head minutely. Not today. "We need stakes," he said. "I know what you get if you win and what happens if you lose. I'm just not sure-- There should be levels. It's not a one and done, all or nothing."

"Levels make sense if you want me to keep at it," I agreed. I wondered what Merlin could offer me that would be worth this much effort. Then again, he'd just implied that he'd be playing, too. Competing against Merlin was a thing that I could undertake entirely as its own reward.

Merlin said, "Successes-- parameters still to be defined-- earn... Yes." He gave me a look that promised sin. "Full body massage. Happy ending optional."

Ghostwheel made a slightly puzzled sound but didn't inquire further.

I raised my eyebrows. "And if I fail?"

"Hand washing dirty diapers," Merlin replied. "An entire daycare's worth."

I whistled because that was actually clever. I'd definitely want to avoid the unpleasantness of the chore, but it also wasn't a forfeit terrible enough to make me cheat viciously.

Merlin laughed.

I gave him the finger, but we both knew he had me hooked. He probably always had.

****

Merlin set me a very strict schedule for the whole founding a religion thing. He didn't care so much about the milestones on the project as he did about knowing that I'd be home in time for dinner. "You can't flit in and out of the kids' lives. They need to know you'll be here," he told me.

I wasn't fooled by that. 

Merlin was the person who really needed to know that I'd be coming home. He was worried that I was going to bolt like a housecat escaping when the front door opens. He probably thought that I'd hide from him under that one car in the back corner of the parking lot, too.

I wasn't that sort of feral or that sort of frightened.

"I won't be going anywhere where Ghostwheel can't find me," I promised, "and I'd drop anything for the kids." I'd already dropped everything but Merlin. I wished he'd have some faith in me. I narrowed my eyes at him. "You just want to inflict diaper washing on me," I teased. "I can't possibly accomplish anything in 9-5 increments."

He laughed. "Of course. There's no other way to get those diapers clean." He hesitated then added, "It's not really that, you know." 

He sounded genuinely worried, so I nodded. "You have servants and magic and machines for those." I smiled at him and wished I were better at not sounding like I was selling something. "I do actually know you, Merlin," I said as gently as I could. "I've never been wrong to trust you."

His smile then was the same one he'd given me after I sent Ghostwheel to rescue him. I had no idea how he could think that I wouldn't be coming back for that.


	5. Chapter 5

After that, Merlin and I went out drinking every now and then. He called them 'date nights' and insisted that we needed time away from home. 

He only meant out of the house, away from the kids, but we walked Shadow for it because everyone in Merlin's Ways knew us both. Everyone would pretend not to notice who we were, but they'd know and watch. Anything we did would be remembered. If we went where no one knew us, we could brawl or fuck or just get stupid drunk without repercussions.

Leaving the Ways was my suggestion, and Merlin's puzzled response told me that he'd never been on an extended military campaign. He didn't quite get the warning about not shitting where you live. He thought it was entirely metaphorical because he'd never watched an army lose most of its soldiers to dysentery because of badly placed latrines. He didn't actually understand how fragile most people were.

The only time he'd lived among ordinary people had been college and the following years on Earth. I don't think he ever saw the aftermath of an accident or disaster or battle. He wasn't interested in such things, so Shadow accommodated him by not putting the dead and the maimed in his path.

Dalt had made sure that I understood those parts of reality. It wasn't so much that he meant me not to harm people, just that he meant to be sure I didn't do it accidentally. "It's one thing if you don't care," he'd told me, "and another if you don't know it's possible. The first is just power. The other... 'Collateral damage' can include things-- and people-- you value."

So we reduced a few bars to splinters, and Merlin experimented with forest fires. I understood the former but never got the latter. We ran together and went white water rafting. He started showing me Merlin the Shapeshifter by modifying his body to cheat when we raced. I didn't catch on to that as fast as I should have because he was subtle about it.

He could have done it when we raced on Earth, too, and he hadn't. I hadn't known he could, so I hadn't understood the restraint involved.

He needed to cheat now, too, because I'd had decades instead of years since our last competition. I hadn't ignored my physical skills while I was off figuring out who I was. We weren't nearly as closely matched physically as we had been.

"You've been working out," he said as we sat on a mesa that we'd just free climbed. We were watching the sunset. "Since Earth, I mean."

I picked up a pebble and tossed it from one hand to the other. I kind of wished we had a pond so that I could skip it. I supposed that I could come up with a spell that would let me skip a stone across air. It just would take a long time to pull it together. "It was something to do," I said after several seconds. "Shadow's infinite, but... Wandering alone was too much like a maze of mirrors. I didn't have any anchors or interests to tell me which direction to go or where to stop." I'd also really needed to move around a lot because I'd realized that my understanding of Shadow and the Pattern was limited. "I worked on the things I could take with me."

Dalt had taught me. Dalt had, largely, been self-taught. Dalt cared more about the concretely and immediately practical side of such things, and those priorities had rubbed off on me. Like me, he'd walked the Pattern after my father died. 

Why hadn't I wondered before why Dalt hadn't walked the Pattern until after Dad died?

Merlin nodded. "I have theories about the aunts and uncles who disappeared into Shadow. Mostly that they found things they couldn't take with them, things with more... more gravitational pull than Oberon's leashes could handle."

I leaned so that our shoulders pressed together. "I'm glad I never met him."

Merlin's eyes moved from the sunset to my face. "I'm glad you didn't, either. I liked him, and I think Corwin loved him, but Oberon didn't love anyone. I'm pretty sure he repaired the Pattern simply because he couldn't bear to lose.

"At some point," Merlin went on, making one of those logical leaps that I couldn't always follow, "I need to really look at Corwin's Pattern. Some point when Fiona is very busy somewhere else."

"I'd offer to watch your back, but I probably can't take her." I had no clear idea of the geography of that bit of Shadow or of what laws might hold there, but Corwin probably hadn't chosen a place that would make shooting him while he was... occupied... easy, so there probably weren't safe places to hide while keeping watch.

Merlin laughed. "I'm not even expecting you to try. Also--" He suddenly looked serious. "If anyone in the family dies, you'd better be a long way away. I'll alibi you, but Aunt Flora and Martin both know I will, so--" He wobbled a hand back and forth.

I stared at him for several seconds, not because I hadn't known that Martin and Aunt Florimel wouldn't take Merlin's word about my innocence but because I hadn't realized that Merlin knew. I should have realized because I'd had evidence in that direction before.

Merlin's ability to understand people got better when there was political maneuvering going on, blossoming right at the point when people became utter assholes because nobody had the power to stop them. He might have been right about Oberon. He'd been right about Mother and about Aunt Florimel and about Martin. He'd only been wrong about me because I'd been out of context. Well, no. I'd been in a different context and acting like I belonged there.

Instead of saying anything, I just looked at the sunset again.

"You should have a kid," he said after a few minutes of silence.

I turned and stared at him.

"No, really. It's a good idea." He held up a hand to forestall my protests. "If you have a kid near enough in age to Clayre and Renart, we can kind of spackle over the question of what the kids call us." He wasn't looking at me. "We could both be 'dad.' Or some variant thereof."

"You make it sound as if me having a kid would be _easy_." 

Merlin's idea of both of us being 'dad' for his kids and mine hadn't mentioned a third person, which implied some sort of weirdly and conveniently vacant surrogate.

I closed my eyes. Finding someone like that for me to knock up wouldn't-- Well, I couldn't call it impossible since Shadow was infinite, but it seemed unwise. Maybe he had a different idea? "You're not volunteering, are you?" If I understood what he'd told me about shapeshifting correctly, he _could_ , but there had to be at least sixteen ways that would be a terrible idea, half of them personal, half of them political.

Merlin shook his head. "Maybe someday, but I'm not ready. Neither are you. We've got this complicated... thing... between us. I'd rather not shatter anything."

I was a little surprised by how relieved I felt by his words. I tried to hide my reaction because I wasn't sure if it would hurt him. "Having a kid isn't exactly something that I can just decide to do. I'm pretty sure none of our uncles used condoms-- ever-- and they all seem to have--" I shrugged and tossed another pebble. "We've only one cousin on the Amber side."

"Only one generally known." Merlin sounded distant. "Oberon mostly acknowledged the relationship because Moire wasn't going to let Amber pretend that Random hadn't-- Well. I know about more relatives on that side in the Courts than are on the entire list of descendants Oberon admitted to. Or that Random admits to." He picked at the seam of his sweatpants. "Sometimes the least likely things happen. I think--" He shook his head. "It doesn't matter. Martin exists, so there must be an explanation. I just don't think it matters to us. For us, it really just needs a shapeshifter, and we have time enough not to have to write a blank check to get one. We could shop around, find a good deal that leaves everybody better off."

In college, I'd always been the one talking Merlin into trying things no one with a speck of common sense would ever have tried. It hadn't been that Merlin was cautious so much as that I thought about parkour while he thought about mad science. His bad ideas were on a different scale than mine and took a lot more preparation and commitment.

Weeks. Months. Years. I had had bad ideas on that scale, but I was trying not to make a habit of it. Merlin was capable of sustained bad judgment.

Not that Ghostwheel was a bad idea. Well, not that I'd ever tell Ghostwheel that he had been a bad idea. He'd come out okay and hadn't destroyed much of anything. I liked Ghostwheel, and members of our family had had much worse ideas. Ghostwheel hadn't ever suggested rewriting the fundamental underpinnings of reality, not once. We still had relatives alive who'd thought that might be worth trying. 

"I also think--" Merlin said a little too casually, "--that we're both happier when we get laid occasionally. The with-each-other part not working right now means finding other people. If we're doing that anyway, why not a shapeshifter?" He shrugged. 

I nodded because that much was true. I suspected that the 'finding other people' thing was meant to serve multiple purposes.

Merlin still thought he needed to coax me into permanence.

I hesitated because I was getting tangled up in speculations about what Merlin was really after. I also wasn't sure why I objected to either the notion of another kid or of some sort of occasional one night stand. Those were different things, and Merlin was wrapping them up together. 

After I'd thought for a few minutes, I said, "Sex for sex is different. It's separate from having a kid. There's-- There's _connection_ in having a kid, connection to the mother, I mean."

We both knew that Merlin would never be completely rid of my mother. 

He studied my face for several seconds. "Not-- We're not looking for other _partners_. Pattern makes finding compatible surrogates really easy. Just walk toward attractive and willing and uncomplicated."

I took a few seconds to weigh my response because he was trying to manipulate me. "It might work." I didn't object to the idea of more kids, in principle. I just didn't think that that was actually what Merlin was after. 

He'd never been bothered by his kids being my siblings; he thought them calling me 'dad' would ease me past my qualms. It might even work.

He smiled. "Even if we don't look for that, there're other types of uncomplicated we might want. I mean, it's okay when we both find someone and go off separately, but..."

"Ah. Separate issue, Merlin. Okay, but separate." I was now almost certain that Merlin's priority was us fucking other people together as a step toward fucking each other. Maybe he thought that idea would freak me out? Was it the sex part he expected me to reject or was it that the shapeshifter side of him would be on display? "We can-- I think I can, anyway-- be in the same room with different partners or share a partner or--" I shrugged to indicate other scenarios Merlin might have in mind. It was easier than trying to itemize possibilities. "We just have to talk about it. Before. Don't blindside me." 

He nodded, and I thought he meant both understanding and accepting terms. He probably actually did get the talking about it before part which was the crucial bit.

"Me having a kid is separate because it means bringing someone else in permanently." I left the 'unless we want to make things very ugly' part unsaid.

Mother out there and possibly coming after Clayre and Renart was sufficient danger. She'd found Julia and Jurt. She'd find other strays if we left them, so if I had a kid, we'd need to keep the mother in our control, which meant making her want to stay, limiting her ability to leave, or killing her. If the mother was powerful, she'd potentially be more able to escape and more likely to have an agenda that could come back to bite us. If she wasn't--

That seemed like a terrible idea, too. Those of Oberon's acknowledged children who had died young but after walking the Pattern tended to cluster in groups of full siblings. Each mother had given her strengths and weaknesses to her children. My father had spoken of it several times, mostly with reference to how Mother's innate power meant I'd be stronger.

The sun finally disappeared, leaving us in the dark.

My hand found Merlin's, and I squeezed. "The idea of a kid-- We _could_ , and it might all be fine, but I can't-- I can manage something transactional but not something that considers the other person disposable. I don't think I could be Mother."

Merlin made a sound that told me that he hadn't considered that part. "You aren't, you know. You wouldn't be."

I wished that he didn't have that level of certainty about where my ethical lines were, but I didn't think I could explain-- even to myself-- why it bothered me, so I pretended that wasn't an issue. "As far as the transactional..." I hesitated. "We can offer sanctuary. We can offer alliance."

He had to know how wobbly an alliance might be over the lifetime of a child. From what he said, his mother was no longer allied with or even friendly to his father. Merlin was still in denial, but I was pretty sure both of us knew where Corwin was.

I'm still not sure that my not mentioning that suspicion to Aunt Florimel wasn't some sort revenge aimed at Corwin. I'm almost certain that I'd have said something if Merlin had seemed at all bothered about the possibility that Corwin might be hurt. Rather than get into that, I said, "Anyone who'd do it entirely for the sake of having a child with Oberon's blood would want to keep the child."

Merlin had to know that, too, had to understand that there was a point when betraying us became the sensible course for such a person.

"I think we could work with sanctuary." He didn't sound like he'd listened to anything but the tentative yes.

"Merlin..." I needed to be blunt, and I really didn't want to put it into words. "We really don't want another custody dispute."

"The universe wouldn't end." There was a little laughter in his voice.

Part of me wanted to laugh with him. Part of me wanted to scream. Part of me wanted very badly to hide him somewhere safely away from all of the dangers he didn't take seriously. Instead, I bumped my shoulder against his. "We don't know that. No reason to risk it." I took a deep breath and forced myself to say, "I don't want a Julia, especially not a Julia with a solid claim on one of our kids."

"Oh." He sounded startled, as if what I'd said didn't quite make sense.

"I can explain Julia," I told him gently. "If that's a thing you want." I was pretty sure that, unless I pointed it out, he'd miss that the explanation generalized.

"I understand Julia," he told me.

I couldn't tell from his voice or posture whether or not he believed that. I'd just have to watch to make sure neither of us fucked this one up. Merlin understood what he understood. The rest was on me.

Maybe I could explain it to Ghostwheel. He was starting to understand that Merlin could make mistakes.

**Author's Note:**

> There may or may not be a direct sequel to this story. I started it with the intention of getting to consensual Luke/Merlin sex, but the story kept snagging on things that really needed to be there first.


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